S08|14 - Around the World With 6, Lessons from Travelling the World for 8 Months

 

We are wrapping up our 8-month international Worldschooling journey. We have been travelling since the end of September with our 4 kiddos, making it around the world and back again. I thought I would share some practical tips on travelling with kids, and what I’ve learned- but what came out of this episode was much deeper than that- how I have fundamentally changed as a human- and the life lessons that have come to me.

In this episode you’ll hear: 

• How flexibility is the key to travelling effectively, and how inflexible I found out I really was
• Dropping control and ego and living into intuition, even when it comes to travel planning, and how I saved myself dozens of hours of travel planning
• Seeing the lives of people around the world, and sharing that with my children has changed us forever (for the better), and expanded my compassion
• My role as a parent has changed, or rather, I see it in a new way… what my responsibility is in helping my kids access their Wisdom
• Triggers, glimmers, and radical honesty: how life is changing me, always (and the lesson from Boddhisatva’s)

**Inner child healing is the work we need to do to parent in the way that we want to, and the benefits for us are huge, the ripples last for generations. It is also THE thing that changed my children’s behaviour for the better- more than anything else. Join me for today’s powerful episode, and integrate this work with me as your mentor- through Parent School and my women’s retreats. 

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Join the re-parenting movement, at my next retreat, The Inward Journey: www.coachcrystal.ca/the-retreat

Parent School: Discover your own unique path, with confidence… raising emotionally intelligent children that leave your home knowing that you truly, deeply care for them… that you always have, and you always will. Isn’t that we all want deep down? That is my goal for me, and for you… and for the future generation for children we are raising. To be seen. To be heard. To be valued. To feel loved. To feel supported. To feel known. To welcome them to be themselves- fully and completely. That is The Work. I am here for it. Welcome. 

Join me for the LAST LIVE round of Parent School:

• shame resiliency: how to feel shame and move through it, what triggers us and why, and how to move through heaviness and use it for growth.
• emotional regulation: what co-regulation is and how to support our children from our energy- not our words (not scripts and mantras, this work is much deeper than that), how to support ourselves and our kids through big emotions.
• the power of our thoughts and beliefs: how to separate who we are from what we think, how to create the exact relationship we want through the power of our mind
• connection-based parenting: why it’s the way of the future, how to parent in a relationship-first manner, developing deep and lasting connections that last a lifetime.
• 6 modules covering all these topics, and more. 2 group coaching calls to get support in your individual family situations. (add-on available for your partner to join).

Find all the information HERE.
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Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study; and I use life coaching tools, emotional wellness tools, and connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.

If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast.

 

Hello and welcome to the podcast episode today, Around the World With 6 Lessons Learned from Travelling with My Family. We have been traveling for eight months by now; we're just about finished, and I thought it would be really fun to do an episode where I kind of talk about what I learned and some travel tips for kids and all of that. 

And then I started kind of writing down what I wanted to talk about, and I realized that a lot of them are not really those practical logistical tips that have to do with travel; and they're more about how I as a person feel fundamentally changed and the ways that I've changed…the things that I've learned, and how I'm so different now as I was last year and what kind of happened for me. 

I have some practical tips on the podcast some episodes that I did several episodes ago, but within this season about traveling with kids and emotional regulation tips with kids when you're traveling. And so, you can go check those out if you want. You can also check out my blog at coachcrystal.ca, then you can click on the travel tab – I think it's slash (/) travel, if you want a little bit more of those practical tips and practically what we've been doing. 

But today's going to be not that. Today just kind of morphed into its own thing; and it's really about lessons I've learned and how I've changed. And hopefully, you can get something from that as well that really sticks with you. 

I also want to mention that my retreat is running June 5th through the 7th; I'll be doing another one in September as well – and this should be airing on April 22nd, if I timed that right. And that will be the last day of the giveaway that I'm doing over on Instagram for a spot to the retreat.

So, if you're listening to this, like on that day, make sure you head over to Instagram and apply for the draw, if you haven't already. And if you've already registered, you will just get a refund or if you want you can just use it to bring a friend or family member with you. So, make sure you check that out. The retreat is going to be lovely this year. 

Okay, so, Around the World With 6 is the name of my travel blog; and we've been traveling for about eight months. It's called World Schooling, which is when you homeschool and you travel the world. I'll be talking about that a little bit as well because it's been very different than regular homeschooling. 

So, my number one lesson, not number one as in like, it's the most important, but I have about six or seven lessons that I'm going to share with you that I learned.

 

How flexibility is the key to travelling effectively, and how inflexible I found out I really was

But the one thing that I noticed is that I'm really not as flexible as I like to think that I am. I've always thought I'm super flexible, I'm very go with the flow, I can kind of do whatever and go with whatever. And typically, when I'm traveling with adults, that is true…when I'm doing things with life, that has seemed to be true in the past. But the more that I travel, the more that I realized like I really did have this idea of what I wanted to get done and what I wanted to see and how the day was going to go. 

And it wasn't always conscious; sometimes it was…sometimes it was like, these are the seven things I want to go see today as we're like in Tokyo or whatever. 

But other times it, I really realize that my brain kind of maps out the day and is like, this is how the day is going to go. And when it doesn't go that way, it gets really stressed out; and it gets really irritable when it's like, 'Wait a second, this is not-- this is not the way that I thought that things were going to be.' 

So, as traveling went on, I realized that I really wasn't as flexible as I thought…that I really did like to control how the day went, control the things that we saw – and I didn't like to leave room for air, to leave room for humans being humans because there's just been a lot of human-ing this whole time. And that became apparent, right, super early on. 

And I think one of the reasons that I felt more irritable, more dysregulated in the beginning was that this flexibility was just really missing. And I learned that I have this control, this ego part of myself that wants to control because it thinks that that'll be better. It thinks that it'll be like the best way for things to happen…than if I plan it, that if I'm the one that decides, then it will be better for everybody involved. 

And so, I wasn't really open to receiving new ideas, new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things throughout the day because I had already had this control ego mind that had already decided what things were going to be like. And that did not go well. 

That didn't-- That did not go well in the travel world, as you can imagine having kids that have their own struggles, having kids that are tired or are cranky or don't want to walk anymore – or get too hot or get too cold – or didn't sleep well the night before or get sick. Like any number of things that happen as you're human, and travel is all about flexibility. 

And the more that I leaned into this, the beginning of our travels are completely different than the end of our travels. If the day doesn't go like I wanted, if I don't get to do the things that I had planned, I'm just like, 'Okay, well, I guess we'll come back…I guess we'll come back to this country, I guess that'll just give us another thing to do when we come back to the city one day.' 

I also feel like it's been more open to other people's ideas and other-- You know, if they want to just hang out at home for the day and I really had something planned, I can go do that on my own or we can just stay home and have like a chill day. And just really consciously making those decisions instead of just having it be the way that I had decided that it was going to be.

And obviously, this is still like a work in progress, this is still going along, but I think the biggest changes for me would be how I travel-plan.

 

Dropping control and ego and living into intuition, even when it comes to travel planning, and how I saved myself dozens of hours of travel planning

So, in the beginning, I planned a lot. I would plan out these tiny little like minutiae, like all the little details of everything for a long time out. And over time, I realized I do everything else intuitively, why don't I do travel intuitively as well? And I started saving myself so much time and effort, like 80 to 90%. 

My number one travel tip if you're looking for something logistical is tap into your intuition, figure out how your intuition speaks to yourself, and then go by that. 

Because instead of being like, 'Well, I have no idea what country to go to, I have no idea what city to go to,' and researching all of the logistics about each place and narrowing it down, and then narrowing all the Airbnbs down and narrowing all the different places, neighborhoods that we want to go to – I just started doing it intuitively. Like, what feels good? What do I want to do? Like if I got to choose anything, what feels like the thing? 

And so, my priorities really shifted. In the beginning, I was really like budget-friendly, everything; in the end, not at all. It was much more about comfort. It was much more about ease. It was much more about being in places where maybe our friends are or being in places that we really wanted to be and would be easy for us to get work done or easy for our children. And so, things really shifted; and I spent significantly less time planning for the last few months than I did compared to the first few months.

So, flexibility is something I'm still learning; I'm still working on it. And that ego part of me that likes to control, that always wants to be kind of in charge and planning things forward… thinks that it's going to protect me, thinks that it's going to be better if everything just follows the way that I want it to. But it really doesn't. It's not-- It's just not true. 

The truth is the more open that I am, the more flexible that I am, the more aware of the needs of the people in my family and not just what I think will be logically best – but really just open to their energy and what's coming and going and flowing – the easier of a time we have over time. So, that's the first lesson. 

 

The next lesson was, I think something that I knew before, I'll just sum it up to say that I am abundant; and I've always felt that way, but I've kind of gone in and out of belief within that, and I've done a lot of abundant work. And so, I really got to the space where I felt like abundance doesn't just have to do with physical wealth, abundance has to do with so many other things. And I feel abundant in so many areas of my life - but then also, in physical prosperity. 

And as I started traveling the world into other countries, especially into countries that were a little bit more developing, where there's a lot more poverty (at least a lot more visible poverty) and a lot more significant wage gap – I guess you would call it, the gap between people that make a lot of money and the people that make not very much money at all – is just so obvious, it's very different than being in North America. And there was a lot of countries like this. 

One of them we were in was Vietnam; and we were in central Vietnam and I was chatting with our taxi driver, and we were having a conversation just about his life. He was really chatty. I don't speak Vietnamese, he does not speak English, but we had this little screen kind of in front of us in our taxi that did translate-- 50% of the time, it would say just the most bizarre off-the-wall things. 

And my children were reading it and just getting a hoot out of like what it was saying, that didn't make any sense. But for the other half that we were having this conversation and we were just kind of getting to know him, he was asking us a lot of questions about just travel and about our lives and then telling us about his life.

And he shared with us that he works 15 hours a day, that he works every day of the week, that his wife works 10 hours a day, that he has a 2-year-old son who gets taken care of by the grandma full-time because they both work so much, that his wife makes about the equivalent of $250 a month or so with all of the hours that she puts in, and that he can't work less because he has to provide for his family and so he has to just take all of the work that he can get. 

There's some high taxation in different countries when it comes to cars and registering cars in that country; and Vietnam is one of them, so it's really, really expensive to get a car, more expensive to get your car and register it than it is to actually purchase the car itself. So, what makes it very difficult to do--  

So anyways, as we're talking to him and getting this conversation, learning more about his life, he starts talking about how-- My kids kind of ask like, "Well, how do you see your son?" 

And he said, "Well, he's asleep when I wake up, and he's asleep when I get home. But when I'm waiting for some clients or whatever to come out of wherever they're coming and I'm waiting for them in my car, then I get to see him over video."

And I teared up, and so did my kids. And it was a really tender moment just to see the kind of life that he had to live just to survive. And we got home and my 10-year-old son was just like, "Does he mean that he doesn't ever get to see his son, like that his son doesn't get to see his dad?"

And we all just kind of sat there. And even when I retell that story, I cry because it was so hard to see so much difficulty-- to see people live in so much difficulty. And there's numerous examples I could give of that, and definitely gratitude for being able to have experiences like this with my children where we can see this. And I truly believe that the more abundance that I have, the more physical prosperity – if you would call it that – that I am able to have the more I'm able to bless others. 

We were in situations where we were able to give people money or tip them way more or help them out in some way that we wouldn't have been able to otherwise. And as I traveled, I just kept seeing more and more ways that we potentially would be able to do that in the future.

And I really feel like it helped me see and just feel gratitude for what I have, especially just the unearned things that I have that I was just born into. But then also just the abundance that my life has and not to feel pity for other people, but to just feel like I want to help people…I want to help as many people as possible. And we really connected with that taxi driver and with a lot of people around the world that we've been able to interact with. And that was-- That's been a really lovely/heartbreaking thing.

 

Seeing the lives of people around the world, and sharing that with my children has changed us forever (for the better), and expanded my compassion

Okay, the next lesson that I learned that I learned pretty early on, but has become more and more important, is that community is really important to me. And not just online social media community, like actual connection with people…speaking to them, hearing their voices, which can be done on the phone or over FaceTime or over Zoom too, but in person is also amazing.

But it's really hard to feel connected and to feel a sense of community when it's so difficult to understand people and to be understood by people, and I didn't really realize how difficult that part would be. Like we went months without speaking to anybody in English, without having a solid conversation that didn't include Google Translate. 

I remember this one time, I think we were in Italy, and we were at church this one Sunday and we met another family and they were speaking in English as well… and so we chatted with them afterwards and we just felt kind of like deprived – like you're deprived of oxygen, but of like speaking to people. 

And we just talked and talked and talked and talked after church for like an hour. And at the end we were like, 'We're so sorry, we have not talked to anybody but each other in months. And clearly, we just really needed to talk to people.'

But I really, I didn't understand how much even, you know, as the introverts in my family, missed that connection and missed that community. And I can't wait to get back and start doing some in-person live events…now that I do breathe-work and hypnotherapy, I'm really hoping that I'll be able to do some in-person events there. 

I also have my retreat coming up, which I'm excited about; and I'll be able to do more coaching on Zoom with people, which isn't all the way live, but I definitely feel that same connection – if you've been on Zoom doing that, I'm sure you know what I mean. 

And along with this, I've also noticed just how changing – I don't know what the word is – that social media is in myself…how I notice my mood and my sleep and my focus and my attention changed depending on how much time I've been on social media over the day, over the week, over the month.

I'm reading a book called Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention by Johann Hari; and I highly recommend it. And I've just been starting to notice some little shifts within that and some bigger ones as well. But he shares a story where he kind of like, he wanted to write this book, he wanted to have this experience – like talking about tech and kind of how tech affects you – and so he disconnected himself from everything and went to go live in this little town for three months with like no internet, no phone. 

And it was interesting just to see how much those tech things had been affecting him in the past, and how reset he felt like his body and his mind went to. But he got to this point where he was feeling like there was something missing, like there was kind of no purpose and no point in life.

And he realized that it was that he didn't have like an intention; he didn't have something he was working towards, he didn't have like something to make him feel productive and good. And so, he talks about flow state and kind of getting into flow, and he started writing his book and all of this. 

Anyways, it's a-- I'll let you read the whole story because it's really, really good…but it's really helped me to start considering making some bigger shifts within my own life when it comes to social media, internet screen use. And I've made a lot over the years, for sure. But I just feel that pull, I just feel that attachment to pick up your phone and check it. 

Like if you looked at like how many times you check your phone a day-- According to him, the average American – I don't know about Canadian, but American – it was like 2,700 times a day that their phone gets picked up. 

And he had some like high amounts of time that we spend on screens, specifically our phones, that kind of a thing. And we all kind of know that and we all kind of know like, 'Yeah, we probably need more sleep…and yeah, we probably need less screens and like, especially before bed and especially when we wake up.' 

But it's so hard to actually implement those things. And that's really what I've been pondering on…is like, how can I really make some structural changes for myself? Especially when we go find somewhere to "settle down", whatever that's going to look like for us…how can I make those structural changes for me and for my family to really just help with our mental emotional health? 

Anyways, so yes, that's kind of its own side thing, but yes, community is so important. Definitely missing that, definitely wanting to go back to a space where we have community…where we can build a sense of community especially a homeschooling educational community for my children, definitely looking for that. 

So, if you're listening to this podcast and you're around the world and you're like, 'I have a really great idea that this is a place that's lovely,' let me know. I'd also be open to like an alternative schooling program – something a little bit that's off the beaten path, not necessarily like just a regular public-school program. 

And what my dream would be if I had more time – and maybe somebody that's listening has this time, and feels like they can just like take my idea and run with it – but I would love like an open school where you go and there's teachers and mentors there and like a really cool science lab and a really cool art place. 

And lots of open doors and windows and lots of light and where children get to choose, and it's very self-directed learning and it's very inspirational and it's a really great educational environment, but they have the choice to learn what they want to learn and to do it at their own pace…and to kind of be guided and led by mentors that are really inspiring.

And I just have this vision of what that's going to look like and what it's going to be like, and just don't feel like I have the bandwidth or time to really get that going – even though I know that it's something that more than just me is looking for. So, maybe you already have that and you were here listening to this, and you're like, 'I'm going to send her an email and tell her to move here,' I will do that because no, we don't have plans for our life after this…we don't know what we're doing next. 

 

Okay, next one, next learning lesson was it became really evident what my children's needs are. And by that, I mean like it's very obvious when they haven't had enough food or when they haven't had enough sleep; and like I've known that for a while, but when you're traveling, you can really tell how much sleep people really need.

My kids, especially how much food affects them and what kinds of food affects them…how much downtime they need versus out-and-about time. And also, how much out-and-about time they do need if we've been having a lot of downtime. 

And educational-wise, it's also been pretty obvious to see which ones need more, which ones are good with what we have. And kind of tying that back into looking for a place with homeschooling community; definitely tell that the teenagers, especially, need to feel productive. 

They need to feel like they are getting something done and feel good about themselves, and more project-based stuff or more long-term stuff. And they definitely need to feel connected to friends – and also a schedule, of some sort. There has like been zero – negative zero (-0) – schedule for us as we've been traveling.

And so, it's just interesting to see what things we thrive in and what environments we don't. And for us, world schooling full-time all the time isn't our jam. And I definitely think travel will always be something that we weave into what we do continuously – maybe in a really intense way, even, like months at a time. 

But as far as just permanently not having a home base, I felt really like floaty and roundy, like just a lack of groundedness. And my children and my husband have definitely felt that as well. So, the permanent world school thing, we know is not for us. We met some lovely people on the road that have been doing it for like three years, five years, seven years; and they do it so well and they love it and they love their reasons for it, and it works really well for them. But for the ages and stages that my kiddos are at, I think that we need something a little bit different for now.

 

My role as a parent has changed, or rather, I see it in a new way… what my responsibility is in helping my kids access their Wisdom

So, this is an interesting one; I started to notice – which really doesn't have anything to do with travel, but this is just something that has come to be as I've been-- Every morning, I have a morning practice. And in my morning practice, I read scripture…I journal, I meditate, I ponder, I think about things. And journaling is more about like me questioning, me thinking, me writing out things. 

And as I started doing that, I started to just notice little conversations and situations that would happen with my kids more…in where I realized, as I'm thinking about intuition so much in my own life and my own business practice, I realized how important it was for them. And I really started to shift like, what is my role as a parent? Like what is my job? What is my responsibility? What should I be doing? What do I even need to be doing? 

And I really believe that I need to be doing less – again, of less of control, less of teaching them how to do things, less of even guiding them – and a lot more of helping them learn to listen to them.

I'll give you a little example. I have some kids that are neurodiverse that I've talked about before. And one of the things that's really hard for them is when somebody tells them what to do. And so, if they're told to do something, it almost makes it impossible for them to do the thing, which makes it really difficult when we're trying to put them to bed at night or trying to get schoolwork done or trying to do really literally anything – get out the door on time. Because if they're told to do something, it makes it really hard for them to do it. If you have ever heard of PDA, this is very like PDA-ish stuff.

Anyways, so as this story that happened, this was like a few weeks ago…I was chatting with my kids and I was trying to put one specific child to bed and it was not working – and just getting more and more frustrated, me and them. And I kind of just said, because we had talked about our intuition before and they had specifically told me like, "I don't love listening to my intuition because they always like tell me to do things I don't want to do, kind of thing." 

And so, I kind of just paused and I was like, "You know what? You already know it's bedtime, I've already told you it's bedtime; we've been doing this for hours. I'm going to go get myself ready for bed and do my own thing. And why don't you just have a conversation with your intuition? Like you decide. I've already told you kind of what the boundary is…you get to listen to your intuition, you get to see what it's saying, and you get to decide to listen to it or not. Like the ball is in your court, dude." 

And I started to leave and they were like, 'Oh, I hate that you said that. It's so much easier to not listen to what you say when you try to force me, but when you don't, it's really hard not to.' 

It's so much harder for them to not listen to me in that moment. And I just thought, oh my gosh, how backwards is that, for one?

But also, that is so true; like the more I push, the more I force, the more they pull back…the more they're just like, 'Nope, I do not want to do that.' 

But the more open I am to…what does your body need? What is your body telling you? Do you feel like you're full? How do you feel like this food is making you feel? How do you feel like screens are making you feel? Are you tired right now? Like, what's going on inside of you? What is your intuition saying to you? 

That there's so much goodness and so much wisdom and so much-- so many cool creative ideas within them. And so, I started to thinking about this more and more since that situation happened…and I was like, 'Really my goal is to just help them listen to them because they have so much wisdom inside of themselves and help them listen to their intuition.'

And as I'm guiding them, my guidance is really to help them listen to them, not to help them listen to me. 

And it really goes back to like that ego control space…am I willing to open up? Am I willing to let go? And am I willing to help them just listen to them? Because I can't choose for them, right? Over time, they're going to become their own people and they're going to do their own thing. 

And I think my other goal, which I think is part-and-parcel of this is, how can I love them more? How can I show them pure unconditional love so that they feel that not only from me, but also from the divine – but they feel this pure unconditional love from the divine, that it feels familiar to them and that when they meet people in their lives, when they meet relationships in the future, when they find partners (which may or may not happen, down the road) that they will feel that familiarity of how it feels to be unconditionally loved?

So, that's kind of a parenting lesson that has nothing to do with travel, but that has really stuck out for me.

 

Triggers, glimmers, and Radical Honesty: how life is changing me, always

Another one is triggers and glimmers. So, the glimmers are those tiny little moments – like not just the big ones, but the tiny little moments where I'm feeling just really abundant or really expansive or really peaceful, really happy, really joyful. And I'm trying to just stretch myself and just live into that moment a little bit more, to just lean into that a little bit more. 

And triggers; I used to feel triggered pretty intensely, pretty frequently. And as I've been doing all of this shame work and Inner Child Work and reparenting – which I think is like the work to do – I really started to notice that shift in change so that I don't feel very triggered at all and not very frequently…but because I'm so much more in tune with myself and my body, I can notice even like these tiny little triggers.

And I notice those tiny little triggers happen often when I'm connecting with people around like Customer Service stuff…like when they get my order wrong or when my luggage messes up, or when we like miss a bus, or when we get to a hotel or an Airbnb and it's not like what it was supposed to be. I notice this trigger, this inflaming frustrated and like an intense frustration inside of myself about the situation. Again, not going like I thought that it was supposed to or somebody not treating me in the way that I think that they should or whatever.

 

The lesson from Bodhisattva

So, I've been learning a lot about Buddhism through several sources, but one of them one of my mentors was talking about this idea of Bodhisattva; and a Bodhisattva is somebody who's reached nirvana, has reached like full enlightenment – is self-actualized, right?

And they can choose to come back to earth to be a spiritual guide. And that can be in many forms, but lots of times, they'll choose to come back to be a spiritual guide in a form that's like really annoying or frustrating to other people so that they can be that person's spiritual guide through them being annoyed at them. 

So, this has been a pretty interesting concept for me and kind of shifted things for me because I'm just like, 'Okay, wait a second, what's triggering me? What's happening here? Okay, yeah, I'm feeling frustrated that like they said they were going to do this and they didn't, or that they lied about the listing or whatever it is…and that's really frustrating me.'

But then I'm like, 'Okay, wait a second, why is this triggering me? Like how could this situation-- how could this person be a spiritual teacher for me? And like, what is there for me to learn in this situation?' 

And it has changed me. It's a work-in-progress, for sure. It's like a practice as you may say, and I know it'll continue to change me to my core…but it's been interesting just to see like, who do I want to be as a person no matter what's happening around me? 

Like, who do I want to be as a person, not just in this work that I'm doing in my home or this work that I'm doing in my business or this work that I'm intentionally doing in the world – in these important relationships – but like in the tiny little minute details of my day in the tiny little moments that I pass somebody and smile or not, or that I interact with a Customer Service person that like messes up our luggage or whatever? Like, how am I going to show up in that moment? 

Because I think that those people expect pushback. They deal with so much junk all the time. They're probably just in a more heightened state of that, anyways. And so, they're expecting like a fight. And what if I don't respond that way? Like, what if I can still respond with love and with kindness and with compassion? 

Anyways, so that's been another learning experience. 

Another one is; what, even, is learning? This has been like homeschooling while traveling, which is called world schooling, has been so different. Just like homeschooling is so different than public school. I tried to public school at home for a while where I was like, 'Oh, I'll just recreate the school…the classroom, school at home,' that did not work either. We had to make some huge changes over the years, and then we kind of got into our groove.

But then without books, without activities, without games, without friends, without the things that typically make up our homeschooling routine, what do we do now? And homeschooling has been really tough. But I always tune back into what really matters; like truly, what really matters? What values do I want to instill in my children? And it always is love of learning. I want them to learn to love learning. 

And am I still teaching them that even without a curriculum, even without books…even on days where I'm like, we're just not doing anything? But that I'm able to instill this really important value within them; and again, help them to listen to themselves. 

There's a poem, we actually found this at a secondhand store. My son found it yesterday. It's called A Slice of Snow: A Book of Poems by Joan Walsh Anglund. And then my 10-year-old came to me to read me four poems that he found out of it.

And as he was doing, so I was like, 'Okay, maybe we're not failing so much. Maybe the-- Maybe we're okay.' 

Here's the poem-- one of the poems he shared with me, 

What need we teach a child—
with our books and rules?
Let him walk among the hills and flowers,
Let him gaze upon the waters,
Let him look up to the stars—
And he will have his wisdom.

 

I think that is so beautiful, right? That we can-- That's the life that I want for my children. I want this slow life, this nature-filled life…seeking wisdom within ourselves, seeking wisdom that's within the universe. And that it doesn't have to happen in these concrete structure guidelines that the world has told us needs to be, like public school. 

Like there's so many structures that we have, not just school, but that it can be beyond that. That it can be something more, something different, something that is not so boxed-in. By more, I don't mean better…I mean it doesn't have to be this boxed-in way of learning. 

And how much learning is happening in having conversations like we did with that taxi driver…in seeing how people live in different cultures, different religions, different climates? Like all of the things has been such a learning experience. 

 

Okay, another lesson is that I am changing always. I can feel it; I can feel myself shifting into new ideas, into new beliefs – and letting these old ones that I feel like are kind of like crusted barnacles, like you see in the ocean, I can feel those like falling off like scales…and I can feel myself remembering these deeper beliefs that were there for a long time ago.

That I'm seeing things in new ways; this is especially apparent in my business, in really seeing things in different ways within business – but also in a lot of other areas of my life as well. And maybe I'll talk about that more in the future, but it's been-- There's definitely been some big inner changes happening, and I don't foresee that stopping. 

I feel like looking at a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 17 years ago…I'm like, 'Wow, I have been a hundred different versions of myself.' 

 

Another thing that has come to me, and this actually came when I was hiking, is this concept of Radical Honesty. And those words came to me as I was hiking and thinking about this. And Radical Honesty is like being honest with myself. It's not like, how can I be more honest with this person about what's going on – although I'm sure I'll be more honest as I'm more honest with myself? 

But it's really about looking inside my soul. Like again with the triggers of like, what's happening within here? Or just noticing what's going on within me, noticing what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling that way. 

And then doing that work that Inner Child Work, that re-parenting work – which is noticing what it is that I need, noticing what's coming up for me, and giving myself that in that moment…giving myself the opportunity to release, to be present, to feel, to process, to feel all the feelings, the entire expanse of emotions that I'm feeling.

 

The importance of re-parenting in parenting

And I feel like re-parenting is pretty much the answer to everything. This is the last lesson that I'm going to share with you today, by the way. But I feel like reparenting is just the answer to all of this.

Like, as I am radically honest with myself, like really digging into what I'm actually thinking and feeling and really allowing myself to answer that for myself. Really looking into my soul with like a magnifying glass and noticing what is, and then giving myself the permission to feel that, to be that, to encompass that…that I bring a new version of myself into the world. 

Our relationship with ourselves is the relationship that we bring into work, is the relationship that we bring into our partner relationship, to our parent-child relationship, to our relationship with our parents, with our siblings…that is the core relationship that we are bringing into everything. And if we want to see shifts in any of those things, reparenting is the way that we find it. 

And currently this is the work that I am doing on myself, on my clients, in all of my programs because I find it the most powerful, the most potent, the most long-term.

 

If you notice that you're in the coaching world and you've been in the coaching world for a while, or you've been in the mentorship world for a while, therapist world for a while…and you struggle with the same things over and over again – the same thoughts that keep coming up, the same issues keep coming up, but you don't notice those more sustainable, long-term deep changes – reparenting might be something for you to look into because it really feels like that is where my relationships change at their core. 

I have deeper connections with myself and others, more communicative with myself and others. Really healthy, strong relationships, strong communication, even strong conflict skills and conflict resolution skills…I bring all of that into every single relationship, and I'm able to find compassion for other people in a more natural way that doesn't feel like it's pulling from me.

And stretching myself to new heights, being open to seeing things in new ways and to just see things in a refreshing way to reach new heights within myself. 

So, if this is stuff that you want to work on with a guide, with a mentor…that is what we do at our retreats, so come and join that. Again, registration is closing May 1st for the June retreat; and it will open for the fall retreat in September, I think those dates are the, 25th, the 27th. So, keep an eye on that. 

If you are listening to this and you're just like, 'Okay, yeah, this makes sense, I'm doing good…I don't think I need anything more right now, I have what I need,' take that, believe in that, move on with that, move forward with that. 

But if you are sitting and listening, and you're feeling that little niggling inside, that little nudge of, 'This is-- this is an area that I could use some support in. This is an area that I could use to focus in myself, and I really feel connected to what she's saying…I really feel connected to this in my soul,' don't just ignore that, look into that, listen into that. 

You are worth the time away. You are worth finding childcare options. And also, you can come, even if you don't have kids; you are worth taking time, energy, effort, money for…you, your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health, and it will change you in lasting ways. So, come check that out. Registration closes on May 1st. Opens for the fall on May 1st, and I can't wait to have you. 

 

Also, I have a lot of other fun offerings that are going to be going on for the next little bit, some summer prep for parenting workshop stuff. So, make sure that you're on my email lists that you get notified of all of that because I don't always remember enough a few weeks in advance to talk about it on the podcast so that you'll know about it here.

So, if you go into my show notes, which should be on any listening platform that you're listening to, if you go kind of under the description below that, there's going to be links; and there'll be links to like take the parenting personality quiz or links to downloading the Feelings Wheel. As you do those things, it will ask you for your email. And as you input the email, you will then be on my email list; and you will know about all of these things. 

You can also just send me a quick email at [email protected] and I can manually subscribe you to that newsletter so that you can keep up with all of the things that are happening. 

And as always, I would love for you to share this work. If something within what I said today deeply resonated with you, I would love for you to share that with someone else. Share this episode with them or leave just like a tiny little review or a little Five Star whatever so that we can spread more of this energy to the world. 

I love what I do. I love this work. I love sharing, I love this podcast. And I would love for it to reach more people. So, if you feel called to be part of that, spreading that, reaching that-- I don't even know what the word is. I just imagine like water, like just whooshing out and spreading it to everyone. 

I love this idea of healing and light and unconditional love for ourselves spreading around the world, and what a different world we would live in if we each understood our own worth and our own value and lived from that and connected with people from their worth and from their value? 

Okay, that's it for me. It is late here, I'm in Japan; and we're headed to California, then we're driving up the Pacific Coast and going back up to Canada. If you were in any of those areas and you want to like hang out, you want to say hi – you want me to come speak to your school, church community program on my way – I'll be more than willing to do that. So, send me an email at [email protected]. See you next week. 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me – send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.